124 • J. C. SCHULTZ ON THE 



will be readily seen, then, that where any other northern Indian tribe would starve or freeze 

 to death, the Eskimo live in warmth and with plenty. A Chippewayan or Tinné Indian 

 hunting party, overtaken by a winter storm on the barren grounds, would have no reaoui'ce 

 for safety and shelter but to lie down and let the snow drift over whatever covering they 

 may happen to have, and often freeze, where an Eskimo party similarly circumstanced would 

 build a comfortable house of the snow which threatened to destroy them. 



It is as difficult a matter as with other Indians to obtain from them an idea of their 

 relii^ious beliefs, and with the Eskimo more so perhaps than with the others, so great is 

 their fear of appearing in any way ludicrous to strangers. To get an idea at all, their lan- 

 guage must be mastered and their confidence gained, and even then they are apt to refer 

 you to their " angekoks," corresponding to the "medicine men " of the neighbouring Indian 

 tribes, who alone are supposed to have seen and held converse with the spirit or spirits they 

 worship, or rather, in most cases, endeavour to placate. As may be imagined, these ange- 

 koks are not anxious to give much information of their methods of dealing either with the 

 Eskimo or with the higher powers, and even they (the angekoks or shamans, as they are 

 sometimes called) vary in their oj^inions as to the greater deity or great spirit, some assert- 

 ing that he is without form of any kind, others asserting that he is shaped like a great bear, 

 but, with or without form, nearly all agree that he resides at the centre of the earth, where 

 there is continual warmth and sunshine, seal, deer, whales, fowl and fish in abundance. He 

 teaches, they say, the "special ones" their arts. There is, however, another great spirit, 

 having no proper name, belonging to the other sex, and having a very bad and envious dis- 

 position. The angekoks boast of close intimacy with the great spirit, and from him they 

 obtain on initiation thc'iv familiar spirit, who accompanies them on their journeys when the}' 

 go to seek advice from the great spirit about the curing of diseases, procuring good weather, 

 or dissolving the charms of some evil spirit by which land and sea aniinals have lieen pro- 

 tected from the hunters. When the angekok is employed to cure the sick, he erects a tent 

 over himself and his patient, singing over him for several days, abstaining from food all the 

 time, and blowing on the affected part, which is one of the chief remedies of these physicians, 

 who employ ventriloquism, sleight of hand, swallow knives, extract stones from various 

 parts of their bodies, and various other deceptions to impress their countrymen with a high 

 opinion of their supernatural powers; and some of them, generally women, pretend to have 

 accjuired the power of stilling the winds and causing the rain to cease. 



Though the majority of angekoks are mere jugglers, the class undoubtedly includes a 

 few Eskimo of intelligence and penetration, and perhaps a greater number of genuine 

 believers whose understanding has been subverted by tlie influence of some impression 

 strongly working upon tlieir fervid imagination. These sensible persons, who are best 

 entitled to the name of "wise men " or "angekoks" (the meaning of the word is "great" 

 and " wise"), have, either from the instruction of their fixthers or their own observation and 

 long experience, acquired a useful knowledge of nature, which enables them to give a pi-etty 

 confident opinion to such as consult them on the state of the weather or the success of the 

 fisheries. They show equal sagacity in their treatment of the sick, whose spirits they keep 

 up by charms and amulets, while as long as they have any hope of recovery they prescribe 

 a judicious regimen. Their blameless deportment and superior intelligence have made them 

 the oracles of their countrymen, and they may be classed as the physicians and philosophei's 

 of this arctic race. Persons of this class, when closely questioned, often avow the falseness 



